Author Notes: Is there a better street food than falafel? You can keep your sketchy taco trucks. The smell of the balls frying, the cool, creamy tzatziki on a muggy New York afternoon. The idea that you are eating something good for you that's on the fried food pyramid. It's really got it all.
And it even comes with it's own slideshow:) —marisab67

Food52 Review: Call anything "world's easiest" and we're skeptical, but marisab67 is on to something. We'd never made falafel from scratch before and were astonished at how easy -- and fun -- it could be. The food processor does double duty for the herbed chickpea mixture and then the garlic-scented tzatziki, saving us from both fine-chopping and washing extra dishes. The falafel patties are easily formed (a good time to put children or other passersby to work) and well-behaved in the frying pan. One bite into a pita stuffed with freshly crisped falafel, doused in your perfect tzatziki and a few shakes of hot sauce, and ordering take-out will seem like too much trouble. - A&M —The Editors

Wonderful recipe. A shame so many people had negative comments about the tzatziki, I would have thought that a forum like this is about reinventing recipes and bringing in your own creativity. All of it was great for us and our toddler, thank you!

I just made these and they turned out great. I needed to add about 1/2 cup water to the food processor to get to the "thick paste" consistency. I'm glad the recipe mentions the danger of falling apart, as mine surely would have if I would not have added some water. Perhaps I didn't soak the chickpeas enough? After soaking the 2 cups of dry chickpeas, I had 3 1/2 cups of soaked chickpeas. How many cups *should* there be of soaked chick peas? Or maybe my lemons were not juicy enough? Would about 2T of lemon juice in the mix be about right? Thanks for this great recipe. And I'm a cilantro lover!! ;-)

I made these, following the recipe exactly, except for increasing the recipe by 1/2. Since it called for one egg, I decided rather than try to add 1/2 a raw egg, I'd just use them both. The 'batter' turned out runny-would just that 1/2 egg make that much difference? The flavors were awesome-and I added more bread, & more beans s=to stiffen it up, but it was still a bit too liquify toffy well without disintegrating. Any ideas or tips?

I did make falafel at home but used a premixed product and added my own variation to it. But it is not really easy finding a good falafel joint. In Manhattan, there is a truck that serves falafel which is very good and then very recently I had falafel at Central Park west, Manhattan, NY. That trumped the one that I had on the truck. Most other places serve falafel balls that are too big and undercooked.
http://thesnootyvegetarian...

I see this comment is from 8 months ago, but would like to recommend a falafel that opened a few months ago next to my house - it is called "the falafel shop" on rivington street at the lower east side.After years of being disappointing from Falafel trucks i found this place and it is delish. though i should share :)

Can you give an idea in weight or cups what you mean by "one bunch" or "half bunch" of mint and cilantro? I realize it would probably depend on which variety of mint and/or cilantro being used, etc., but do you have a rough guide? Thanks.

I can't wait to try this! I'm soaking my little chickpeas overnight, but then I'm going off to work in the AM. Should I just leave them out to dry all day? Or put them into a container and refrigerate until i get home and THEN air dry them? Thoughts?